Harvey Weather Forecast

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Kalbarri to Denham (Day 2)

﻿﻿﻿ ﻿﻿﻿ After packing up in the rain, we headed on our way through Kalbarri National Park. Due to the rain, some of the roads to popular river look-outs were closed, but we still had the chance to stretch our legs and enjoy some beautiful scenes of the Murchison River. At the farther end of the national park we still got to stop at Hawk's Head and Ross Graham Lookout.

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Murchison River

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Instead of "Where's Waldo?" - or "Where's Wally?" in Australia- it is
"Where's the Walkers?" There are all four of us in there somewhere!

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Quick potty break and stretch at the Billabong Roadhouse

Another interesting stop was at Hamlin Pool to visit the Stromatolites and Shell Quarry. The Stromatolites are considered a living fossil. These tiny single-celled organisms are millions of years old and one of the first life forms on earth. ﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

Double click the picture to learn more about the Stromatolites

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﻿﻿Newer "young" Stromatolites are still growing, adding less that a mm per year.

Older "dying" stromatolites, stained red by iron oxidization.

Blocks were cut from the Shell Quarry and used for some of the first buildings in Dehnam.

After logging in another 400 km, over 6 + hours, we arrived at our "quaint" accomodations in a caravan park in Denham. Monkey Mia/ Denham/ Shark Bay is a popular holiday destination, especially over school breaks, and places to stay are hard to come by. So, when we found this park cabin (which turned out to be a 1970s thin walled trailer) online and it was available for our 3 days in Denham, we booked it. It wasn't our favorite place, but we didn't stay indoors long anyways. One reason we wouldn't recommend it to others would be that the cook stove was actually just one flimsy burner that took nearly two hours to cook rice. Ahh, it's all about the experience.